Posting on the blog a few awesome things I've recently discovered:
* a jewelry company whose business model assumes and persues ethical materiel
* IFLScience May 5 article: China outlaws the eating of endangered animals
* linked WildAid article about Chinese tourists in Kenya (Sept 2013)
http://www.brilliantearth.com/our-movement/
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/china-outlaws-eating-endangered-animals
http://www.wildaid.org/news/say-no-ivory-and-rhino-horn-chinese-cell-phone-users-told
Friday, June 6, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Fb status May 28 2014, plus commentary: source of all abuse
Fb post and Tweet, 5/29/2014:
Fb added commentary:
(140 characters to sum up the source of all abusive behaviors ever ... yeah, I think I'm proud enough of that to share my Tweet here too ; ). )
Expansion:
This 140 character summary is based out of some hard, hard life lessons I've learned through observation of myself and others : (.
Of course the worst attempts to control stem from feeling entitled to [our perception of what we need to feel loved]. Of *course* this "need" -- constructed via personality and experience on top of the *true* need, which is [to be and feel loved] -- of course this "need" is pre-rational / infantile / "instinctual," and of course, then, the actions that arise out of it are just exactly as un-self-disciplined as that depth of personal history would suggest, unless and until the person in question has done major healing and developmental work. Maybe we did that work at the "right" times (our first chances, when we were 9 months, and 3 years old, and 8 years old, and etc. ...), but more likely we missed one or more steps and spend our adult lives (ages 14 and up) scrambling to uncover and realign the bits in us that didn't end up growing right (or at all).
I firmly believe that each human has a right to *be* loved, and even a right to *feel* loved (which I suspect we can all admit is two different things, but I might be projecting ;) ), but our true need is obscured by all kinds of justifications and coping mechanisms around the constructed but still subconscious "need" for what we *perceive* we need to feel loved.
These can be very stupid things, like, we need our life-partner to always be a little bit sick because one of our parents was never physically healthy (and therefore always needed us to be emotionally wrapped up in taking care of them ... and now our life partner), or we need our life partner to be emotionally unavailable, because that is what feels like "home" to us (despite in fact making it impossible for an actual need, to "feel loved," to be met!). Or what we perceive we "have a right to" can be very real, healthy things, that are actually how we feel *love* (instead of just how we feel emotionally "at home"), which ideas/methods like the Love Languages (words, physical touch, doing things for the other, gift-giving, and whatever the other ones are I can't remember ;) ) get SO much closer* to.
Of course as a believer in the Divine (still on the Catholic train, after all these years ;) ), I have no dissonance with a perception that (1) there is no way humans alone (much less any one other human) can fill another human's need to be loved absolutely, and that (2) our scrambling in panic to force others to fill that fundamental, monkey-brain need in us, and the failure of it ever working, are both predictable outcomes. We are looking for something infinite in a finite place. (Most secular writers I've read from around this topic gave up the concept of actual fulfillment long ago (it is, after all, clearly illogical to perceive it as possible) and merely aim for "as healthy/fulfilled as we can figure out how to get to." Which is pretty much what religious people end up doing too, functionally.)
Regardless of the question of God, though, certainly -- observably -- truly wonderful and loving people regularly do some truly horrifying things, whether subtle or overt, both long term and in the immediate now, to people they really do love, because of this. In fact, we probably do them *more* to people we "really do love," because we have fewer defenses and boundaries, and higher expectations that aren't-getting-met, with people we love, right? We talk about emotional contracts and codependence because of this; real trauma happens every day to and because of well-meaning, thoughtful people, because we are subconsciously panicking, because we are never quite getting what we actually, really need, and very few people have the capability (and let's be honest, often just not the energy) to catch themselves in time to prevent injuring the object of our desires.
Of course there are a significant percentage of people who do truly inhumane, uncivilized things, when their deepest needs are not being met.
People who have significant chemical imbalances.
People from cultural backgrounds (whether family-sized or larger scale) that never opened their eyes to healthier/growth-oriented choices than they were brought up with, or who were taught superiority/entitlement so thoroughly that these teachings function as truths unquestionable.
People who have accepted social teachings (all the prejudicial -isms) that make their lives "easier" to "understand" while actually blocking them from understanding anything helpful about themselves, the people around them, or how to get their relationship needs truly met.
People who instinctually avoid pain and discomfort for themselves to such a degree that they justify (consciously or subconsciously) using other people however is "necessary" to feel comfortable or assuage pain.
Being aware that one's instinct to control another is based on a panic reaction to one's own needs not being met, is the first step toward building a better future, because one can then both work on understanding their own needs (as exposed by their panic) and also deliberately, consciously, consider what choices might be both more effective and healthier in getting their needs met -- identifying the real difficulty and creating, finally(!), an opportunity to truly resolve, instead of energetically perpetuate, what is uncomfortable or painful.
.
Attempts to control others is a *panic reaction* when ur subconscious assumptions of entitlement r threatened. What do u fear? #YesAllWomen
Fb added commentary:
(140 characters to sum up the source of all abusive behaviors ever ... yeah, I think I'm proud enough of that to share my Tweet here too ; ). )
Expansion:
This 140 character summary is based out of some hard, hard life lessons I've learned through observation of myself and others : (.
Of course the worst attempts to control stem from feeling entitled to [our perception of what we need to feel loved]. Of *course* this "need" -- constructed via personality and experience on top of the *true* need, which is [to be and feel loved] -- of course this "need" is pre-rational / infantile / "instinctual," and of course, then, the actions that arise out of it are just exactly as un-self-disciplined as that depth of personal history would suggest, unless and until the person in question has done major healing and developmental work. Maybe we did that work at the "right" times (our first chances, when we were 9 months, and 3 years old, and 8 years old, and etc. ...), but more likely we missed one or more steps and spend our adult lives (ages 14 and up) scrambling to uncover and realign the bits in us that didn't end up growing right (or at all).
I firmly believe that each human has a right to *be* loved, and even a right to *feel* loved (which I suspect we can all admit is two different things, but I might be projecting ;) ), but our true need is obscured by all kinds of justifications and coping mechanisms around the constructed but still subconscious "need" for what we *perceive* we need to feel loved.
These can be very stupid things, like, we need our life-partner to always be a little bit sick because one of our parents was never physically healthy (and therefore always needed us to be emotionally wrapped up in taking care of them ... and now our life partner), or we need our life partner to be emotionally unavailable, because that is what feels like "home" to us (despite in fact making it impossible for an actual need, to "feel loved," to be met!). Or what we perceive we "have a right to" can be very real, healthy things, that are actually how we feel *love* (instead of just how we feel emotionally "at home"), which ideas/methods like the Love Languages (words, physical touch, doing things for the other, gift-giving, and whatever the other ones are I can't remember ;) ) get SO much closer* to.
- * [... and yet they miss so thoroughly, sigh: The only presentation of the Love Languages I've read was by a man -- the author, or at least an author, of the book/ideas -- and I found his descriptions quite masculinized and exclusionary of my experience, despite being in a magazine designed for both genders with a cant towards female readers. Particularly odd was his making a point to include sex under "physical touch," when sex actually -- obviously, I would have thought(!) -- can (and probably should ;) ) involve aspects of all of the Love Languages he listed, and DEAR GOD is it important for people to understand that a person with a Love Language of touch *needs* specifically non-sexualized touch, a *lot,* or you break the person emotionally, just like if you assumed all your caring-via-words should be sexual, that would be sick and wrong, and zero people would be surprised when an all-words-of-love-are-sexual relationship broke the object of "affection." Eww. And yet from all societal indications many men (and presumably some women) think *all* touch should, properly(?!?), have a sexual load on it. Plus, I of course find particularly irritating the lack of acknowledgement of the spiritual senses and how much they matter. Hence, I find the Love Languages a very useful idea-direction, that got seriously, sadly, warped before it reached final form.]
Of course as a believer in the Divine (still on the Catholic train, after all these years ;) ), I have no dissonance with a perception that (1) there is no way humans alone (much less any one other human) can fill another human's need to be loved absolutely, and that (2) our scrambling in panic to force others to fill that fundamental, monkey-brain need in us, and the failure of it ever working, are both predictable outcomes. We are looking for something infinite in a finite place. (Most secular writers I've read from around this topic gave up the concept of actual fulfillment long ago (it is, after all, clearly illogical to perceive it as possible) and merely aim for "as healthy/fulfilled as we can figure out how to get to." Which is pretty much what religious people end up doing too, functionally.)
Regardless of the question of God, though, certainly -- observably -- truly wonderful and loving people regularly do some truly horrifying things, whether subtle or overt, both long term and in the immediate now, to people they really do love, because of this. In fact, we probably do them *more* to people we "really do love," because we have fewer defenses and boundaries, and higher expectations that aren't-getting-met, with people we love, right? We talk about emotional contracts and codependence because of this; real trauma happens every day to and because of well-meaning, thoughtful people, because we are subconsciously panicking, because we are never quite getting what we actually, really need, and very few people have the capability (and let's be honest, often just not the energy) to catch themselves in time to prevent injuring the object of our desires.
Of course there are a significant percentage of people who do truly inhumane, uncivilized things, when their deepest needs are not being met.
People who have significant chemical imbalances.
People from cultural backgrounds (whether family-sized or larger scale) that never opened their eyes to healthier/growth-oriented choices than they were brought up with, or who were taught superiority/entitlement so thoroughly that these teachings function as truths unquestionable.
People who have accepted social teachings (all the prejudicial -isms) that make their lives "easier" to "understand" while actually blocking them from understanding anything helpful about themselves, the people around them, or how to get their relationship needs truly met.
People who instinctually avoid pain and discomfort for themselves to such a degree that they justify (consciously or subconsciously) using other people however is "necessary" to feel comfortable or assuage pain.
- (I note in passing that pornography, at least standard pornography, is a gateway drug to this deadening, and occasionally deadly, trip. I also admit that I feel a sad satisfaction-of-logic that pornography is, as I was recently reminded during a talk about sex education, creating a generation of men with impotence problems, because their bodies have been thoroughly trained in isolation and with unreal input, and can't function with the real thing, even when the young man is truly in love ... all from an "innocent," "boys being boys," "justifiable," and unfortunately now "quite normal" (and incredibly physiologically, as well as psychologically, addictive) habit.)
Being aware that one's instinct to control another is based on a panic reaction to one's own needs not being met, is the first step toward building a better future, because one can then both work on understanding their own needs (as exposed by their panic) and also deliberately, consciously, consider what choices might be both more effective and healthier in getting their needs met -- identifying the real difficulty and creating, finally(!), an opportunity to truly resolve, instead of energetically perpetuate, what is uncomfortable or painful.
.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
tapping meridians ...
astonishing.
Here recorded so I can find it again next time I want to look it up:
http://eft.mercola.com/
.
Here recorded so I can find it again next time I want to look it up:
http://eft.mercola.com/
.
Monday, January 6, 2014
FBstatus Nov 10 2013: why creative people are "different"
(This was really weird to read -- because having these things described as 'foreign' to 'normal humans' was diosconcerting. Kinda' like my ongoing irritation with people who consider me capable of hyper-focus: I am reasonably convinced that all humans can focus adequately, but that many of us get broken while we are developing and then can't ... which makes those of us who can look 'weird' or 'specially capable' ... when really, I am just healthy in some places most Americans (at least) don't seem to be nowadays [and broken in different ones, that display differently]. What I actually said on Fb was this:)
Oh.
This explains (by derivation) why other people act (and don't act) the way they do. Huh. An interesting mirror on 'normal' ...
Thanks, Irene :).
http://www.matthewschuler.co/why-creative-people-sometimes-make-no-sense/
Comments:
Me: What is most funny to me, the longer I sit with this, is how I don't experience the distinctions, and certainly not the 'opposites'-ness, of these terms as the author implies humans "do"(/so firmly "should" in their head that they cannot make the distinction between their prejudice and a more variable reality).
As a person with a massive and exquisitely (painfully, most would say ) precise vocabulary, I recognize the rhetorical 'correctness' of the conceptual assertions, and the derivative assertions of opposite-ness. But the dictionary meanings have so little to do with how these attributes actually manifest in actual thought-life, psychological-life, emotional-life ... I rarely experience any sense (as it's implied most people do?) of conflict between the impetuses listed. They are all ways of looking at problems, they each add their own true-being, colors, forms, rhythms* to the eventual answers.
Perhaps what is upsetting to others is the dynamic nature of the multi-dimensional balance/center that I (and apparently other "creative" people) maintain? It is true that pieces are always in motion -- that motion is a fundamental, and something that therefore must necessarily be perceived as beautiful and life-giving -- in my personal development and in my perception of what is required for local/global/universal development. Preferentially static thinkers and people who prefer or need intellectual stability or security don't prefer to hang out with me, for sure ...
I have always been of the opinion that creativity -- even deep creativity -- is inherent to human nature, but that many of us are so injured we cannot access it. Certainly for many years I was.
Thoughts?
Me: * my attempt to explore thought-life in 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D
CH: Csikszentmihalyi is awesome! I am a huge fan of his thinking around human behavior....
Me: [CH]: well, I'll have to read more of him, then. Any particularly recommended books/articles (with the caveat that I don't have access to an academic library, only the Portland library system, for the nonce)?
CH: If you message me a viable email account, I can email you articles. I am reading Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" right now, and I found it in Barnes and Noble...
Me: on it
KJ: (As with everything, I find...)It is a matter of perspective. I think that artists (and scientists and philosophers) are granted this magical power of holding two seemingly contradictory aspects in conceptual agreement. It could be said to be a fundamental flexibility of those disciplines, but I too believe all people can and should exercise this capacity. Call it creativity, imagination, what have you; it is an function of any working brain/body.
KJ: That said, some brains -i.e. those of "creative types"- are more adept, by way of practice and some might say obsessional fixation, at this way of perceiving and functioning, that it may affect a zone of discomfiture with those other people unused to splashing about in the shifting miasma of chemical contradictions we call consciousness.
.
Oh.
This explains (by derivation) why other people act (and don't act) the way they do. Huh. An interesting mirror on 'normal' ...
Thanks, Irene :).
http://www.matthewschuler.co/why-creative-people-sometimes-make-no-sense/
Comments:
Me: What is most funny to me, the longer I sit with this, is how I don't experience the distinctions, and certainly not the 'opposites'-ness, of these terms as the author implies humans "do"(/so firmly "should" in their head that they cannot make the distinction between their prejudice and a more variable reality).
As a person with a massive and exquisitely (painfully, most would say ) precise vocabulary, I recognize the rhetorical 'correctness' of the conceptual assertions, and the derivative assertions of opposite-ness. But the dictionary meanings have so little to do with how these attributes actually manifest in actual thought-life, psychological-life, emotional-life ... I rarely experience any sense (as it's implied most people do?) of conflict between the impetuses listed. They are all ways of looking at problems, they each add their own true-being, colors, forms, rhythms* to the eventual answers.
Perhaps what is upsetting to others is the dynamic nature of the multi-dimensional balance/center that I (and apparently other "creative" people) maintain? It is true that pieces are always in motion -- that motion is a fundamental, and something that therefore must necessarily be perceived as beautiful and life-giving -- in my personal development and in my perception of what is required for local/global/universal development. Preferentially static thinkers and people who prefer or need intellectual stability or security don't prefer to hang out with me, for sure ...
I have always been of the opinion that creativity -- even deep creativity -- is inherent to human nature, but that many of us are so injured we cannot access it. Certainly for many years I was.
Thoughts?
Me: * my attempt to explore thought-life in 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D
CH: Csikszentmihalyi is awesome! I am a huge fan of his thinking around human behavior....
Me: [CH]: well, I'll have to read more of him, then. Any particularly recommended books/articles (with the caveat that I don't have access to an academic library, only the Portland library system, for the nonce)?
CH: If you message me a viable email account, I can email you articles. I am reading Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" right now, and I found it in Barnes and Noble...
Me: on it
KJ: (As with everything, I find...)It is a matter of perspective. I think that artists (and scientists and philosophers) are granted this magical power of holding two seemingly contradictory aspects in conceptual agreement. It could be said to be a fundamental flexibility of those disciplines, but I too believe all people can and should exercise this capacity. Call it creativity, imagination, what have you; it is an function of any working brain/body.
KJ: That said, some brains -i.e. those of "creative types"- are more adept, by way of practice and some might say obsessional fixation, at this way of perceiving and functioning, that it may affect a zone of discomfiture with those other people unused to splashing about in the shifting miasma of chemical contradictions we call consciousness.
.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Fb status Oct 14 2013: biochar!
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/12/biochar-production.aspx
This article's assertions seem pretty reasonable, except that I am far enough removed from formal science classes that I have questions that I can't usefully guess answers to about the downsides (there must be some) of this low-oxygen burning process ... other than that, this-all fills in a gap I've been trying to figure out: how to reasonably re-texture the soil (peat moss is a non-renewable resource at the rate it is now used, and manure or compost take too long to use over large areas ... even with 20+ horses!).
For poor-nutrient soils, the charcoal acting 'like a land-based coral reef' is awesome ... that connects the dots to a microorganisms/fungi set of articles I was reading a few months back in the local agricultural paper :) ... I hope some people put in demonstration fields in each state sometime soon to show us how it works (and how well/not well it works)!
I'm glad too see discussion of grazing animals as the environmental agents they were designed to be (by God in my worldview, but "by evolutionary constraints and symbiotic relationships" works, too).
The earth is a giant energy-storing battery (and thus we have warmth and life) because not only do plants suck up the sunlight, but also they turn into dirt (which animals help with in all kinds of ways) ... it's the dirt that really stores the chemical energy from the sun in a stable but reasonably accessible way ... I actually (at least somewhat scientifically) think the reason our planet's core stays molten is because subduction feeds this stored chemical energy into the planet's inner furnace, exactly like adding logs to a fire; I suspect living, healthy dirt (turned into rock <=> a well-cured log) is why we aren't Mars. So, I'm pretty bullish on the concept of dirt, but I'm also practically pretty ignorant ;) : P...
[Mom], what think ye of this article? Your grazing management efforts fit right in :). Betcha didn't know your business plan inherently included carbon sequestration efforts ;).
Now we just need some alpacas or sheep, and a WAY bigger chicken run ;), and maybe some of this charcoal doohickey stuff, which sounds like an awesome soil amendment.
Thank you, A.O., for the link :).
This article's assertions seem pretty reasonable, except that I am far enough removed from formal science classes that I have questions that I can't usefully guess answers to about the downsides (there must be some) of this low-oxygen burning process ... other than that, this-all fills in a gap I've been trying to figure out: how to reasonably re-texture the soil (peat moss is a non-renewable resource at the rate it is now used, and manure or compost take too long to use over large areas ... even with 20+ horses!).
For poor-nutrient soils, the charcoal acting 'like a land-based coral reef' is awesome ... that connects the dots to a microorganisms/fungi set of articles I was reading a few months back in the local agricultural paper :) ... I hope some people put in demonstration fields in each state sometime soon to show us how it works (and how well/not well it works)!
I'm glad too see discussion of grazing animals as the environmental agents they were designed to be (by God in my worldview, but "by evolutionary constraints and symbiotic relationships" works, too).
The earth is a giant energy-storing battery (and thus we have warmth and life) because not only do plants suck up the sunlight, but also they turn into dirt (which animals help with in all kinds of ways) ... it's the dirt that really stores the chemical energy from the sun in a stable but reasonably accessible way ... I actually (at least somewhat scientifically) think the reason our planet's core stays molten is because subduction feeds this stored chemical energy into the planet's inner furnace, exactly like adding logs to a fire; I suspect living, healthy dirt (turned into rock <=> a well-cured log) is why we aren't Mars. So, I'm pretty bullish on the concept of dirt, but I'm also practically pretty ignorant ;) : P...
[Mom], what think ye of this article? Your grazing management efforts fit right in :). Betcha didn't know your business plan inherently included carbon sequestration efforts ;).
Now we just need some alpacas or sheep, and a WAY bigger chicken run ;), and maybe some of this charcoal doohickey stuff, which sounds like an awesome soil amendment.
Thank you, A.O., for the link :).
FB status Oct11 2013: women as cave painters?
noting an interesting development in anthropology, and how fast the conversation then degenerated from "these were amazing mystical power-drawings" to "well, of course, they wanted to decorate the caves they were stuck in all day while the men did interesting and brave things outside" : P ...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art/
"Were the first artists mostly women?" (Nat'l Geographic seems to have been a primary source for the info quoted around the web at this time ... tho' the comments at Jezebel were way funnier ;) ... and less irritating(!).)
.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131008-women-handprints-oldest-neolithic-cave-art/
"Were the first artists mostly women?" (Nat'l Geographic seems to have been a primary source for the info quoted around the web at this time ... tho' the comments at Jezebel were way funnier ;) ... and less irritating(!).)
.
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